


We Go Together Like Buddy Holly and Light Aircraft

by BetteNoire (WeAreWolves)



Series: A Hatemance For The Ages [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Hatemance, M/M, References to Depression, Snark, alternating pov, elephant drugs, poor decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-02 16:33:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17267555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeAreWolves/pseuds/BetteNoire
Summary: It’s all fun and games until somebody loses an arm.





	1. Chapter 1

Bucky huddles under his blankets. It’s that weird space between Christmas and New Years and his body has finally crashed after (in general) this entire absolute motherfucker of a year and (in specific) the shitshow of a death cult mission in Rochester.

And, of course, his soulmate situation. He’d driven back to New York in a sort of manic daze and seen Steve and then left the gala and… just… fallen apart in slow motion.

He’s not an idiot, he’s been a great big sack of sad most of his life so he knows what the precipice of a big depressive spiral feels like. He also knows the fastest way through it is just to lay down and let it wash over you. Don’t fight. Just let it pull you under, and then get out the other side. Eventually.

But it‘s been a few days now, and the other side is nowhere in sight.

He manages to skype his parents in Indiana: false cheer and a new job and they bought it all, Bucky’s on the up and up, got a sweet gig with the government. They comment on how nice he looks since he’d shaved and had a haircut. It said something about his life that basic hygiene was at this point enough to impress the shit out of his folks.

But then his mom had gone and blown it. “Oh, have you ever run into that Captain America at work? Such a handsome young man. And he has a soulmate now! That blonde girl is almost as good looking as him, they’re _adorable_ together.”

Bucky chokes on his vanilla coke and stutters a goodbye, closing down Skype and googling Steve. Who hadn’t contacted him since Stark’s gala. Who, a rational part of Bucky’s mind supplies, _doesn’t have Bucky’s phone number_ , but he could easily get it off Natasha. Not calling just means he didn’t want to. (Bucky didn’t have Steve’s number either, but it surely was up to Steve to call him, wasn’t it?)

Google tells him that Steve had been going to more galas. Bucky was officially on two weeks’ block leave after his mission, so they hadn’t called him in on the duty roster. Not that they’d assign Bucky to Steve anyway. They’d apparently taken to assigning Sharon Carter to him, because she was cute and bubbly and still could kill you fifteen different ways with a paperclip, so Bucky 100% understood the operational logic of assigning her as Steve’s close protection on outside events when they couldn’t have a STRIKE watchdog tailing him like a black-clad murder shadow.

But when you’re fully in the swamp of depression, there’s a big difference between _rationally understanding the logic of something_ , and your dumb brain being okay with it.

No. Bucky’s dumb brain was definitely _not_ okay with it. Bucky’s dumb brain had in fact decided that panic and paranoia were the only acceptable solutions and it had gotten to the point where in the past 24 hours he’d only managed to get out of bed to piss and that, only when his bladder was about to explode. And, joke’s on his mom, because he hasn’t showered, brushed his teeth, or shaved since talking to her five days ago.

Maybe he’ll just wait until this year was over. Then he’ll get out of bed. Make a fresh start. Get Fury to assign him somewhere far, far away on something really lengthy. He could… work a lot. That was like living, wasn’t it? If you squinted?

 

* * *

 

Natasha slides in next to Steve at the common room kitchen island during breakfast the next day, and smiles at him. It’s all teeth. “So, seen Bucky recently?”

Steve stiffens like he’s been electrocuted. Sometimes he’s sure that Natasha can read minds. How could she know he had been sitting there thinking about Bucky, hoping he’d run into him soon on an op, or at another gala. Or even down in the Avengers gym. Sometimes STRIKE guys trained there while they’re seconded to the Avengers, and it made sense for Bucky, since it had equipment built to withstand the additional wear and tear of supersoldiers whaling on it. And then he starts thinking about Bucky all sweaty in the gym, and his t-shirt sticking to him, and—

“…Steve?”

He stares down at his hands, and remembers twisting them into Bucky’s hair. “He hasn’t called me. I assumed he was busy,” he mutters.

“I’ve texted him—“ Natasha looks down at her phone— “42 times, and he hasn’t responded. I’ve even sent him a gif of a tiger sitting in a cardboard box and nothing.”

“Maybe he’s on another mission?” Steve tries.

Natasha rolls her eyes. “He’s got block leave. Didn’t he tell you?”

Steve shakes his head, then glances down at his phone, like miraculously Bucky’s number could appear in his contacts between one blink and the next. “We, uh, don’t really… communicate? We just sort of… run into each other.”

Natasha’s eyes widen and her head tilts in a mix of fury and astonishment. “Steve. He’s your Soulmate. Are you even _trying_ to have a relationship with him?”

Steve blinks, as panic churns in his stomach. He attempts to come up with an answer that makes sense, that makes him seem like he knows what he’s doing, but he doesn’t manage it before Natasha’s forehead does a slow swan dive towards the kitchen counter and she begins banging it gently against the granite.

Steve smacks the counter, huffing in frustration. “Look. I’ve never—“

“He’s depressed, Steve,” Natasha says, not even bothering to lift her head off the counter. “He has chronic depression.”

Steve remembers. He’d caused the last bout. “Shit. Did I…”

“No, Steve. Depression just _happens_. You definitely could have been less of a dick, but something else would have triggered it.” Natasha sits up again and glares at him. “Some people deal with severe depression by throwing themselves into situations likely to kill them. Like, I dunno, suicide by Nazi. Or smashing perfectly landable planes into oceans.”

“It wasn’t—“

“Horseshit, Steve, and you know it. Other people deal with depression by withdrawing from life and pushing everyone away until loneliness and misery and thus more depression becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy” Natasha leans forwards then and pokes Steve, right in the middle of his forehead, with her index finger. Her voice goes low, and rough. “You two are so alike in so many ways, but if you let him withdraw from you without a fight, you are going to lose the best thing that ever happened to you. And I know you’re a fighter. _Fight for this_ , Steve.”

Steve stares at Natasha’s serious expression. She doesn’t flinch, and stares right back at him. She’s looking at him the way Bucky does, like she’s daring him to throw the first punch. It makes him so angry when Bucky does that, with his stupid sassy mouth and his inability to just walk away from a confrontation without trying to win and Christ, someone with the face of a Renaissance lord should not also have a body like an underwear model and what on Earth did he do to get Bucky Goddamn Barnes dumped into his life like 200-odd pounds of pale fire that burns everything it touches.

And what does he have to do to _keep_ him in his life.

Steve blinks first, looking down at the grey and black granite of the counter. “This is… the scariest fight I’ve ever been in,” he whispers.

Natasha slouches back, crossing her arms, “Yeah, _duh_ , because all you had to lose before was your life, and we all know you don’t give a shit about that. I’ve seen you treat street litter with more care than you take of yourself in a fight, _oh no, better carry this plastic bottle ten blocks to find a recycling bin_ , but parachutes? Nah, who needs ‘em.”

“Do you know where he is?” Steve says, cutting Natasaha off. He can feel the blush on his cheeks. “ I.. I don’t even know where he lives.”

Natasha rolls her eyes again. She gets out her phone and types something in. A moment later, Steve’s phone dings with an incoming text. “He lives in barracks, Steve. At Shield. Go see him. He’s not able to get up and see you right now. Don’t take that as meaning he doesn’t want to. His depression isn’t letting him.”

Steve gets up. He reaches out to Natasha, hesitantly, but then draws his hand back, not sure if his abortive attempt at hugging would be welcomed. “Thanks.”

Natasha sighs and starts playing a game on her phone. “I like him as my op support. Don’t fuck him up.”

 

* * *

It’s… Sunday. Maybe? Bucky doesn’t know. His phone says it’s 9:00 but he’s not sure if it’s am or pm, and he doesn’t really care either way, but someone is banging on his door and they won’t stop.

It’s not a mission, because SHIELD has an actual alarm set on his phone for things like that. In fact, there are about five levels of alarm, each with varying degrees of how fast he’s expected to get his ass in uniform and out the door.

Ugh. Still knocking. Maybe if he just lies there and plays dead long enough, they’ll—

“Buck?”

Bucky’s brain simultaneously goes _ohmigod it’s Steve_ like some blushing 14 year old girl about to meet her boyband crush and goes _oh shit it’s Steve_ as he remembers he’s unshaven, wearing a t-shirt so old it’s got a whole galaxy of holes across it, and has been marinating in his own misery for… oh, a week now. _He_ can even tell he smells awful.

More banging. “Bucky, I know you’re in there, can we talk?”

Ugh. The asshole is probably going to break the door down next. Might as well get it over with, Bucky thinks. _Can we talk_ never signals anything good. Crap. He was _enjoying_ being fuck buddies with Captain America. He’d been enjoying it so much he’d gone and caught a whole ocean of feelings which just refused to stay fucking down.

And then Bucky realises. This is probably about the gala, when Bucky’s brain to mouth filter had stupidly evaporated in his post-orgasmic haze and he’d burbled _I love you_ at the guy who clearly only enjoyed hate-fucking him and otherwise resented his very existence. Duh. Rookie mistake, Barnes. And now it’s all over.

There were plenty of Soulmates that just… agreed to disagree with Fate’s choice. Maybe 5%. Some even lived together as friends, while seeing other people. Not that they could ever do that. Bucky’s pretty sure he would murder Sharon Carter right now if given half the opportunity and a clean run up to the Third Avenue Bridge to dump the body.

“Bucky, I’m worried you’re not okay. If you don’t answer in the next five seconds, I’m going to break the door down.”

Bucky groans loud enough for Steve to hear, and mumbles out an “I’m coming.” Which apparently he wouldn’t be any more in the near future. He rolls out of bed awkwardly and shuffles over to the door, all three steps, and flicks the lock. Then he goes back to bed.

And nothing happens.

He finally rolls back over and squints at the doorway. Steve Rogers is filling it, all broad shoulders and tiny waist and long legs and that stupid fluffy duckling hair of his, and he’s shifting nervously from foot to foot.

“What,” Bucky says, pushing the blanket off him and leaning up on one elbow.

Steve clears his throat and looks down at his hands, which he’s twisting together. After a long moment of awkward silence, he blurts out, “I think we should live together. You should live with me. In the tower. And I want to meet your family.” He says all of it with a facial expression like he’s swallowing the world’s most unpleasant cough medicine.

And Bucky may occasionally be a sad sack of shit, but he’s nobody’s charity case.

So he narrows his eyes and says, “Look at you, pretending to be a person. Six out of ten. For the record, your wax replica at Madame Tussaud’s is a seven out of ten.” Then he slow claps.

Steve flushes bright red with anger. “Fuck you,” he bites out, stepping into Bucky’s room.

Bucky ostentatiously sniffs his armpit, says “I’m a little gross, but—“ he wiggles out of his boxer briefs— “As you wish, Buttercup.”

Steve stares at him for a moment, completely poleaxed, then growls with rage and whirls, putting his fist straight through the drywall next to the door. Bucky lurches back and away and Steve just stands there with his arm stuck into the wall up to above his wrist, and then slowly leans forwards until his forehead touches the wall. “I didn’t come here for sex,” he says quietly. “And you’re not going to goad me into hate sex to make you feel better.”

“Balls,” Bucky says.

“Master tactician,” Steve says.

“That why you’re standing there with your fist in a wall, Clausewitz?” Bucky snorts, pulling his briefs back on.

Steve slowly pulls his fist out of the wall, trying to cause as little additional damage as possible.

“Look, Steve, do you really want me to live with you,” Bucky sighs. “Or do you feel like this is something we _should_ do? That soulmates are supposed to do? Like you’re checking off some list in a women’s-magazine. _Ten Signs Your Soulbond is Successful_.”

“I don’t know,” Steve says, staring at his feet.

“I mean, the few times we’ve boned at your place, you’ve always hustled me out straight after like you were afraid to be seen with me, so…” Bucky looks up at him. “Excuse me if I’m a little doubtful about this whole ‘let’s move in’ bombshell.”

Steve runs his hands through his hair, in the process both smudging plaster dust on his forehead and making his quiff stick up more. It’s adorable. Bucky wants to go over and smooth it down and/or blow him.

“I wish we could just… go on dates,” Steve says. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never been in a relationship. Nobody wanted me. Then everybody wanted me. And… I didn’t trust them. You never forget being the kid everyone made fun of. You’re always waiting to be the punch line.” He shakes his head. “We started wrong, and we keep going wrong… and I don’t know how to stop it.”

 

* * *

Bucky just stares at him, calmly, sitting on his Army cot with his back to the wall. Objectively, the man’s a mess, rumpled and musky, with bedhead and a week’s growth of scruff on his cheeks. But he’s got an old navy-blue t-shirt on that hadn’t quite coped with his increase in muscle mass post-Serum but was clearly too loved and soft to be thrown away. And Steve just wants to walk up to him, into him, push him back down onto the cot and kiss him breathless. Stick his fingers in all the t-shirt’s little holes, make ‘em bigger.

And then Bucky says, all gravelly-voiced and husky, “You don’t owe me anything. We could just be fuck buddies.”

Steve knows what it feels like to crash into freezing water. Bucky’s words feel worse. He steels himself. He can get through this, this uncontrollable falling apart. He’s gotten through wars. He can get through this.

“Is that what you want,” he asks, as neutrally and calmly as possible.

Bucky doesn’t answer, doesn’t meet his eyes. He just draws little spirals on his blanket with his index finger.

“I’ve broken this,” Steve sighs, turning to go.

“We never had anything to break,” Bucky mutters.

And this is it. This is the end.

Except Steve doesn’t want it to be the end. He turns back to Bucky, fists balled. “Bucky, I want—“

Then Steve’s phone goes off, the harsh air-raid siren tone of a Maximum Threat, Assemble Immediately.

A second later, Bucky’s phone starts flashing red and screaming out its own alarm. Bucky rolls off the bed and is pulling out tac gear from his closet and Steve shakes himself, realising he’s just been watching.

“I, uh—“ he says, pointing towards the door.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, pulling weapons harnesses out of the closet and laying them on the bed. “See you out there.”

“Keep Natasha safe.”

“That is my job,” Bucky says, turning his back to him.

Steve heads up to the top floor of the building, where they keep one of his spare, dark-blue tactical uniforms. It must be bad, because everyone’s been called in. The halls teem with field agents gearing up.

As he’s pulling his uniform on, he calls Stark. “Hey, Tony, I’m at SHIELD. Can you pick me up from the roof? And bring my shield.”

“This is your fault!” Tony yells. Steve can tell by the slight echo it’s from inside the Iron Man suit.

“Everything’s my fault today, Tony,” Steve says, pulling his gloves on. “But what particular flavor of my fault is it this time?”

“Aliens, Cap. Aliens over New York, Tokyo, Rio, and Delhi,” Tony says. “This is what you get for joking about how much you like alien invasions rather than dealing with actual humans and their emotions.”

“I can punch aliens,” Steve smiles. “Can’t punch feelings.”

“Your. Fault,” Tony growls. “Be on the roof in two.”

“Aye-aye, Stark.”

 

* * *

Bucky scrambles to the Ready Room, armed with everything he’s got, and gets told yes, it’s aliens, _again_ , and he wouldn’t be following Natasha because Barton was in Singapore (they were scrambling him to Tokyo, along with Sam, who’d been on holiday in Boracay) and so he’d be on overwatch.

They sent him up to the roof with the heavy .50-cal Barrett M107, two spotters, SHIELD’s second-best sniper, and the armourer’s assistant, and tell him to knock everything out of the sky he can.

It’s a strangely smooth transition from the dull even-ness of depression to the dull even-ness of _aim, breathe, fire, eject, aim, breathe, fire, eject_. And the sky is a target-rich environment. He feels like maybe he should be freaking out more, because there’s a giant spaceship with guns on its underbelly covering half the sky, and it’s vomiting out aliens in two-creature airsleds (one drives, one fires), but mostly Bucky’s just glad for cold steel at his cheek and the repetitive sound of brass coming out  the ejector port.

And because he’s calm, the rest of the team is calm, too, even if the armourer’s assistant is looking a little shaky around the edges. Bucky sends him down to see if they have anything in the portable SAM range, because if that big ship gets any closer, he could maybe get a Stinger up in one of its launch bays.

He’s far from the only rooftop sniper. But he is, he allows himself a small glow of pride, the most effective.

He’d be worried about that, because it’s sure to attract the aliens’ attention, but luckily there are a bunch of superheros running (and flying) around to distract them. Hard to get fussed about a sniper with Iron Man fucking your shit up.

Thankfully, the aliens — weird, ugly, cadaverous-looking green things — seem to want to keep the city infrastructure in place, they just want to get rid of the people. Because the guns on the bottom of the ship look like they could level a city block in one shot. And hell, the Army has drone systems that can knock shit out from 40,000 feet, if these spacemen wanted total property destruction, presumably they wold have done it from orbit.

Besides, the aliens’ ship keeps blaring some sort of horrible, screechy message, but nobody in New York speaks alien, and if the aliens want to live in New York they can suck it up and mortgage their entire souls for a studio apartment the size of a walk-in closet like everyone else. In a fight between a 60-year-old with a rent-controlled apartment and a pair of aliens looking for a vacation home, Bucky’s putting all his money on grandma.

Bucky shoots two aliens through the head with one bullet. His spotter whistles, low, impressed.

Iron Man seems to get worried about the mothership’s belly guns too, and begins knocking them out, one by one, and Bucky’s job immediately changes to protect Iron Man from the swarms of aliens trying to stop him. He can’t even see Natasha, or Steve. There’s lightning from uptown, so Thor’s over there, somewhere. And, judging from the rumbling on the Westside, Hulk is busy smashing any aliens that get to ground.

But now the thought’s in Bucky’s head, he wants to know where Steve and Natasha are. He taps his spotter, Rodriguez, and asks her to look. He doesn’t need a spotter to pick aliens off Iron Man’s six. She nods, and in his peripheral vision, he can see her sweeping the area with her binoculars.

“Black Widow on Fifth Avenue, clearing civilians and engaging any ground hostiles. She has a platoon of STRIKE agents with her, looks like Delta,” Rodriguez says.

“What about Cap?” Bucky mutters, as he reloads. He can hear footsteps behind him, and flinches.

“SAM’s arrived,” Rodriguez says. “We got three Stingers. Still looking for Cap.”

Then six sleds of aliens land on the roof and it turns out they can shapechange into humans and things get really messy and weird for a while and by the time Bucky can go back to overwatch, he’s covered in sticky purple alien blood, Iron Man is nowhere to be seen, the mothership is a lot lower down and the last three guns on the mothership are starting to glow. Which… can’t be good.

Bucky grabs a Stinger and fires its missile at the nearest gun and it blows up in a most satisfying way and the whole mothership rocks a little bit, so Bucky grabs the next Stinger and the other two guns are aiming but not at him which makes no sense, they’re aiming at another rooftop and one fires and Bucky fires at the gun because fuck no, _nobody_ wrecks New York, not even Midtown, and the gun’s blast never hits because it’s blocked by lighting, but Bucky’s missile hits and disables the gun, and then there’s something flying through the air and Bucky realises it is Steve Goddamn Rogers who has flung himself at the last remaining gun like he can punch it into submission and then go beat up all the aliens on the ship and _tactical fucking genius, Bucky’s hairy arse_ , because that’s exactly what the fuckwit is doing, but the gun is already firing and you can’t punch anything if they vaporize you—

“Yeah, Iron Man is down, no wait, he’s getting up, not airborne yet but powering up,” Rodriguez says, and then she says, “Sarge, what the fuck are you doing—“

And Bucky really doesn’t know but he’s racing across the roof and using everything in his new superpowered body to fling himself at Steven G Rogers, Complete Idiot and he’s in midair and firing the last fucking Stinger and praying that it’s anywhere near target and he hits Steve hard enough to knock him out of the way of the gun’s beam and Jesus Christ this was a terrible idea, the ground is a long way down, and then everything goes white and hurts unbearably—

 

* * *

Bucky wakes up. Everything is still white and something is beeping in the distance, and it takes him a moment to realise it’s a machine, and he’s hooked up to the machine, and he’s in a hospital.

It takes him a moment, because he’s really, _really_ high.

(It’s pretty great, actually. He hasn’t felt this sparkly since he woke up as a supersoldier and—

“Fucking Christ, what now?” Bucky says, sitting up.

“Jesus!” Tony Stark yells, dropping some tool that clatters on the floor and backing up. “You aren’t supposed to be awake until, like, tomorrow!”

“You should definitely give me more elephant drugs, then,” Bucky slurs, as the room starts spinning severely. He grabs the bed-rails so hard that he feels them bend under his right hand.

So, still a supersoldier, then. That’s… good.

Wait. Why didn’t he fuck up the left bed-rail too? Why can’t he _feel_ the left bed-rail?

Bucky looks over at his left hand.

“Uh,” Tony says, putting his palms up.

“Oh, you’re awake!” Natasha says, sauntering in. She has pudding. Damn her.

“None of you are Steve, and I appear to be missing an arm,” Bucky says. “Because of that you have to give me your pudding.” He makes grabby hands. Well, grabby hand. “And more drugs. Did I mention more drugs already?”

Natasha smiles and hands him her pudding. It still has the top on it. How does he get the top off? He frowns at it.

Tony sighs and reaches over and takes it off. “Steve’s in Tokyo. The aliens got a lot further there. They learned from their attack on New York and deployed into the countryside, shapechanging and coming in as human. Rio and Delhi are under control, thanks to Quill’s gang, and the Wakandans. And yes, you lack an arm. That’s why I’m here.”

“Also you got a concussion and weren’t medically cleared to leave the Tower for two weeks,” Natasha says.

“And blah blah, and Jarvis locked down my suits on Pepper’s orders, the traitor.”

“Did they give you the good drugs too?” Bucky mumbles, around a mouthful of vanilla pudding.

“I got the concussion fishing you and your soulmate out of the sky with a broken suit, after you’d both apparently decided to enact a suicide pact,” Tony says.

“Oh. Oops,” Bucky says.

“Oops,” Tony repeats.

“He was gonna kill himself trying to punch a giant alien gun, and he’s not allowed to kill himself before I kill him for being a dumbass,” Bucky says, gesturing emphatically with his pudding spoon. “He is _not_ the greatest tactician of the modern era.” And then Bucky starts giggling. “He’s a very naughty boy.” Bucky can’t stop giggling, and he plops back onto his hospital pillows and cackles to himself while Tony Stark looks at him, an expression of wonder dawning across his face.

“Where have you been hiding,” Tony breathes.

“In the Avengers-only restroom at your gala, last I heard,” Natasha says, which just sets Bucky into another fit of giggles. Bucky gives her a thumbs-up and attempts a high-five, forgetting he has his pudding cup in his hand. He misses.

“Okay, so clearly I am very glad you didn’t die, for any number of reasons, and I thought the leading one was that it gave me an opportunity to try out some neural-linked prosthesis theories I have, but I realise now it’s because you are a _gift_ to me, the kind that will keep on giving for years to come. I have _never_ been able to annoy Steve Rogers as much as you have. I am giving you an apartment in Avengers Tower, rent-free, for life, in exchange for you just letting Jarvis occasionally play me the really funny parts of you pissing Steve off. _Please_ ,” Tony whines. “Also, I’ll make you a cool new metal arm.”

“How big is the apartment?” Bucky says.

“Uh… two thousand square feet? If that’s too small—“

“‘Kay,” Bucky says, “no take-backs,” and passes out.


	2. Chapter 2

“—it’s done, and he’s sleeping off the anaesthetic,” Tony says, at the other end of the video call. “We can’t tell fully how it integrates until he wakes up, but everything went as well as it could.”

“Okay. Okay, thanks, Tony. I...” Steve looks around him. They’ve put most of the fires out. “We’re almost done here. One more day, then I’ll be on my way back.” He takes a deep breath, and looks straight at the screen. Straight at Tony. “I know we sometimes haven’t seen eye to eye, but… this means a lot to me. Thank you for doing it.”

“Pfft,” Tony says. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for _him_. You seen that kid’s file? You don’t get the super-soldier serum and automatically become a great soldier. He was already exceptional. Also, he’s hilarious.”

“Oh. I… haven’t seen his file, no,” Steve says, his cheeks colouring. Once again, everybody seems to know Bucky better than he does. But Bucky was _Natasha’s_ op support, it would have been snooping to look at his file. There was no reason for him to ask for clearance to read it.

“I can email it to you. Jarvis—“

“Tony, no. I… looking into another soldier’s service record without their permission or without them being under my command, it’s not something I’m comfortable with.”

“I bet you’d like him under your command,” Tony smirks.

“Tony,” Steve sighs. He’s so tired. And suddenly, viscerally, he misses Bucky fighting with him, shoving him around. Of how Bucky commands _him_. Of how he can let go with Bucky. Of how they hold each other when they’re too orgasm-drunk to remember that they hate each other.

Tony’s expression gentles. “Look, from one disaster to another, maybe just take him out one night and ask him about himself. Just… listen to him. It’s lovely when people listen to you, take an interest in you.” He smiles ruefully, then, and says, “See you soon, Cap.”

The call clicks off.

“So,” Sam says, ambling up next to Steve and handing him a protein shake, “I go away to Boracay for a few weeks’ R&R and you go and find your Soulmate.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Sam. It’s… not been an easy time.”

“Man, I get it. I was on holiday from all that.” Sam sits down and begins sipping on his own protein shake. “Huh. Matcha flavour isn’t as bad as I expected,” he says, swilling the viscous green liquid around. Then he smiles up at Steve. “Tell me about him?”

“He punches tanks!” Hawkeye yells from across the room.

“Tell me stuff I can’t find out from mission reports or youtube videos,” Sam sighs.

Steve smiles, despite himself, and sits down next to Sam. “He’s almost my height. Brown hair, it’s always messy. Pale blue eyes, like a mirror, or the sky reflected in water. And he’s— I dunno, from some angles he’s kinda funny-looking, but when he smiles, he’s the most beautiful person in the room. In _any_ room. And, God, Sam, you wouldn’t believe how he gets under my skin…” Steve rakes a hand through his hair. “I can’t be Captain America around him. I instantly revert to an angry little punk from Brooklyn.”

His voice drops to a whisper. “He makes me so mad. We were fighting, you know, before…” and then Steve has to press his palms against his cheekbones, to stop the rush of emotion that’s threatening to overwhelm him. “…and he went and took a hit for me.” His voice chokes off into nothingness as he mouths the words, “Nobody’s ever _done_ that for me before. Nobody’s stepped in and taken the blow meant for me.”

Sam rubs his back, and doesn’t say anything about the way Steve’s body is shivering under his hand.

* * *

Bucky stares down at his segmented, silver, robot arm.

“Try to move it,” Tony says.

“Um,” Bucky says. He’s barefoot, in sweatpants, with no shirt on, in Tony’s lab, having been wheeled up there for a checkup. He can see the plates like dragonscales, running all the way up his arm to his shoulder, and then he winces away from the scarring around where his old arm had been burned away by the alien gun, and the new metal prosthetic had been attached.

Tony taps his foot, restlessly. “Can you wiggle your fingers? Don’t overthink it. Wiggle your right-hand fingers, then your left.”

Bucky frowns, then… his fingers move. Metal digits tapping on the surface of the exam table. “Uhh!” He groans, sitting up and trying to press his palm against his fizzy head, which only results in him smacking himself in the face with his metal hand. “ _Bluh_. Brainfreeze.”

“Don’t sit up,” Tony says, not even glancing down from the scrolling info-feed on the holoscreen above him.

“Too late,” Bucky says. He wiggles his fingers again. It’s still weird, in his head. Like cold sparkles, but not as bad as the first time. Then he rotates his wrist, and turns his arm over. “Huh,” he frowns.

Now Tony looks at him. The man’s eyes are shot with red, and the skin underneath is puffy and bruised. “‘Huh’ what? ‘Huh’ good or ‘huh’ bad?”

“Just…” Bucky says, glancing down at his left bicep. “Lost his Words. _Again_. Beginning to look like carelessness.”

“They’ll come back,” Tony says. He taps his chest. “Mine were here, at first.” Then he taps his thigh. “After… _you know_ , they came back _here_ , a couple weeks later. They’ll come back, Barnes. That’s certain.”

Bucky feels a pain, then, like a needle in his heart. He knows it has nothing to do with the arm. “Yeah, well,” he whispers. “I don’t think anything is certain with us.”

He looks at the arm again, bright and beautiful, and he knows he should be grateful for this miracle, for all of Tony’s work, but Bucky Barnes is frequently a sad sack of shit so in the wake of the tidal wave of emotions he’s realising he has about Steve’s Words, all he manages to say is, “well, so much for my bright undercover career.”

“Thought about that!” Tony says, perking up. “Skins!”

“…What?” Bucky says.

Tony points to the bank of 3D printers chuntering away against the back wall of the lab. “I’m printing up some right now. You’ll wear them like opera gloves, over the metal. It may not pass muster if you have to get, uh, _up close and personal_ with someone, but presumably also in that eventuality Steve would come crashing through the wall like the Star-Spangled Kool-Aid Man and beat the daylights out of that person, so whatever.”

Bucky wiggles his metal fingers again. It doesn’t sparkle in his brain any more. Then he makes a fist. Out of a vague, curious interest, he then punches the metal exam table. Various little instruments and one medium-sized Stark all jump, and then clatter and thump back to their respective surfaces.

The exam table now has a sizeable dent from Bucky’s fist. “Huh,” he says.

He slides out of his chair and wanders over to a bunch of Iron Man suits in wall alcoves.

“You’re not supposed to be walking,” Tony says.

Bucky uses his super amazing future prosthetic to give Tony the middle finger. “Tony, any of these suits you don’t want any more?”

“The one on the left’s an outdated model, but why—“

Bucky hauls back and punches the suit’s breastplate with all of his enhanced strength. A horrible KLANG echoes through Tony’s lab, and then a splitting sound, and Bucky stares, rapt, at a widening crack in the breastplate radiating out from the fist-shaped dent in it.

“Cooool,” Bucky says.

“You should not be up, and you definitely should not be doing that,” Tony says, wagging a screwdriver at him.

“You definitely shouldn’t be up either, Tony, how long has it been since you’ve slept?” Bucky says. Now that Tony mentions it, he is still a bit woozy. And hungry. Very hungry.

“That’s not the issue here,” Tony says.

Bucky looks down at his arm again. It’s pretty in the light. He holds both his mismatched hands out, turning them, and watching the light play over them.

The first sob catches him by surprise, and then there’s no stopping it, and he just stands there, in the middle of Tony Stark’s laboratory, bawling his eyes out as he stares at his hands.

“Oh wow,” Tony says, swaying nervously in his work chair.

“I’sorry,” Bucky snuffles, rubbing his left forearm across his snotty nose, and then blushing with embarrassment and trying to wipe the snot off his metal arm onto the rear of his sweatpants. “The last few weeks have been… a lot.” He snorts again. “I used to work in a coffeeshop.”

“Aw, kid,” Tony says, hesitantly reaching out. Then he flinches back and grabs a screwdriver, twisting it in his hands.

“I never said thank you,” Bucky says. “Um. Thank you.”

“I told you, the arm was a theory I wanted to try anyway, and you just happened to—“

“No. I only had a job at the coffee shop because of your veterans outreach program,” Bucky says, staring at his bare feet. “That helped a lot. I was.. not good for a while.”

“Oh,” Tony says. “Yeah, I’ve been there.” He taps the screwdriver handle against his palm. “Look, kid, it’s gonna be okay.”

Bucky looks up, his eyes shining. “No, it’s not, but I can keep working, thanks to this.” He clenches and unclenches his fist. “I can at least be useful to Shield.”

Tony just stares at him, brown eyes wet, and then shakes his head slightly. “We both need sleep. Tired and emotional. Tell you what, get in that wheelchair, and I’ll push you down to your apartment.”

“I can walk,” Bucky protests.

“If you fall over, I can’t catch you,” Tony says. “And Pepper’s still got my suits on lockdown.”

Bucky thinks about it, nods, and gets in the wheelchair.

“Look, kid,” Tony says, pushing him down the corridor towards the elevator, “If you ever wanna be an Avenger, you, uh, I mean… I’d be happy to have you on the team. And it’s my team, so I get to say things like that. You don’t have to stay Fury’s dirty little secret forever. And if you decide you don’t want to do any of this crazy stuff, I’ll give you your coffee shop job back. Or any other job at Stark Industries you want. It’s my Tower, so I get to do that too.”

“Thanks, Tony,” Bucky mumbles. The motion of the wheelchair is oddly soothing, and he’s realising he’s maybe a little more tired than he thought. His brain aches.

“Hey, do you know how to do that latte art stuff?” Tony says as they enter the elevator.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Can you show me how to draw dicks in the foam?” Tony asks.

Bucky’s eyes snap open. “ _Oh my god_ , why did I never do that with Steve’s drinks?”

“Because he orders plain black coffee, like some sort of loser,” Tony grumbles. “He’d probably boil it up in a pan on the stove with chicory, if he could.”

The elevator dings and Tony wheels him out. “This is the floor above Steve’s. My architect claims the apartments are soundproof but when you’re feeling better, I’m happy to deliver a dozen bowling balls here and we can put that to the test. At, maybe, 4am.”

“You,” Bucky says sleepily, waving his new miracle robot arm at Tony, “You are a bad influence.”

“What can I say,” Tony says, putting a hand on his chest. “You inspire me to new and greater depths.” Then he points down the hallway. “Now, like the book says, go the fuck to sleep.”

Bucky shambles off in the direction Tony points, to find a gigantic bedroom with a king-sized bed and floor-to-ceiling windows looking towards Central Park. He starfishes onto it and his last thought before he falls asleep is that maybe, just maybe, he can get through this.

Even if Steve never comes back.

* * *

Bucky wakes up later. Maybe it’s the same day; maybe it’s another. He’s not sure. All he knows is that it’s daylight and the sun shines low and rosy on the glass of the nearby high-rises.

And he’s _starving_.

He begins to get out of bed and then freezes, startled by the flash of silver in his peripheral vision.

Oh yeah. He’s a cyborg now.

Well, at least his outside is as fucked-up as his inside now, he thinks, as he tries to rub his eyes and nearly gives himself an orbital fracture with his left hand.

He shuffles to the bathroom (giant rain shower stall, what), has a piss, and then takes his first shower in… well, ugh, maybe two weeks. Depends on how long he was in hospital. It feels like he sloughs off an entire layer of dirt and dead skin.

No new Words are revealed, though. No qualified compliments in Steve’s perfect grammar-school cursive. Which… he misses them. He was so hopeful when he first got them, then he met Steve and became delighted to get rid of them, then furious when they came back… and now they’re gone again.

Without Words, could he still go yell at Steve? Did they have anything left at all?

Bucky almost has another good cry under the seemingly endless hot water of the shower. But he pulls himself together, dries off, shaves, and goes out to explore his new apartment in nothing but a towel.

The place is so big it feels like it should have its own zip code. It’s lightly furnished in the blandest, most inoffensive version of modern possible, but there’s a study, with bookcases, and a big comfy leather armchair overlooking Manhattan, and it’s already Bucky’s new favourite chair and he hasn’t even sat down in it yet. Even if he gets all his books out of storage, they won’t fill all the shelves.

“Oh, Jarvis, can you see if we can get my things sent over from SHIELD barracks? It’s only a backpack and a duffel but, ha, I need more to wear than a towel.”

 _Of course, Master Barnes_ , the ceiling says. And… yeah, Bucky still isn’t over that.

“And can I get delivery here?” Bucky continues, as his stomach reminds him sharply that he’s been living on IV nutrients and Tony’s shakes for the past week.

_Indeed. All the normal delivery apps work, or you can simply tell me what you want. But I would advise you to check what is already in the kitchen first._

Oh yeah, the kitchen. Bucky hadn’t made it out past the master bedroom suite yet, apparently. And, now that Jarvis mentioned it, something did smell good. Like apple pancakes. Maybe Tony had already sent him food.

Bucky hustles out of the study and down the hall towards the kitchen, fiddling with the bath towel, which refuses to stay tied.

There’s the clank of a pan being put on the stove and Bucky looks up, immediately falling into a fighting stance.

The towel slips off his hips and falls to the floor.

Followed shortly thereafter by Bucky’s jaw.

Standing at the stove in a beige satin corset, silky blue lace panties, and stockings, is no other than Steven Goddamn Rogers. Steve’s Words — Go To Hell — are framed perfectly between the bottom of the corset and the low, lacy panties.

They gape at each other for a moment, and the only thing Bucky’s brain can come up with to say is, “you’re gonna burn yourself if you try to cook dressed like that.”

And then because his brain really hates him, he says, “I tried to cook bacon naked once. Not as, like, a sex thing, just because I was… really lazy. It was a bad idea. Don’t do it.”

“Okay,” Steve says, glancing down at himself. “Noted.” He pauses, and licks his lips. “I’ve, uh, I’ve re-thought the appeal of the whole… lingerie scenario.”

“I can… see that,” Bucky says. He’s caught between wanting to lean against the wall and just stare, because _holy shit_ does Steve in a corset and women’s panties do things for him, and wanting to get closer. So he splits the difference, propping up the wall for a few breaths, and then pushing off to pace slowly around the kitchen, needing to see the back of the corset, where the laces go.

Steve just stares at the fancy copper pan on the unlit stove. “Nobody’s ever saved my life before,” he says. Then he turns to Bucky and as his weight shifts Bucky sees the fabric stretched across his ass catch on something, just for a moment, and it’s a plug, and Steve says something else but Bucky doesn’t hear it because his brain is too busy screaming white noise as it dives straight to the bottom of the gutter.

He’s brought back to the present by Steve’s frustrated sigh. He knows that sigh. He has a PhD in that goddamn Sigh of Disappointment, it’s been directed at him so many times.

“What,” Bucky says, leaning casually back against the counter in a way that shows off his abs to full effect. _Yeah, motherfucker, two can play at this game._

Steve squeezes his eyes shut. “God, I can’t even look at you,” Steve says. “Why do you make me so stupid.”

“I don’t make the stupid, I just reveal it,” Bucky says. “Technically, your momma made the stupid.”

“I can’t believe you just your momma’d me,” Steve says, wiping his hands down his face.

“It’s a New York tradition,” Bucky replies.

Steve sighs again, picks up the pan on the stove, realises he has no idea what to do with it, and bangs it down on the stove. “Can you just listen to me for one moment?”

Bucky steps forwards, but Steve holds up a finger. “No. Stop. I have to get this out.”

Bucky stops. There’s something almost desperate in Steve’s tone, something raw, and he hasn’t heard it before.

Steve reaches out, and puts his hand on Bucky’s freshly-shaven cheek, and it’s soon joined by the other hand on the other cheek, and Bucky almost successfully looks Steve in the eyes and ignores what the corset is doing to his ridiculous pecs. Mounds. That’s the word. _Handfuls_.

Steve’s thumb strokes Bucky’s cheekbone, almost affectionately, and that makes Bucky look him in the eyes. Because they’ve never had that, never indulged in the pointless, lingering touches of lovers. They yell, they fuck, then one of them leaves. Usually Steve.

“I want to live with you, Bucky” Steve breathes. “I want to meet your family. Not because I think it’s something I should do. Because it’s something I want to do. Even if we weren’t Soulmates. I want you to be the first thing I see in the morning, and the last thing I see at night. I want to know what movies you watch when you’re sad. I want to argue about books with you. I’m not going to promise I’m any good at this, but I want to try. And, uh,” Steve glances down at his outfit, swelling out his chest even more, “I thought I could take care of you while you recover.”

A shadow of doubt falls across Steve’s face, and he begins to take his hands away. “Um… Bucky?”

And Bucky can’t figure out what to say.

He pulls away from Steve and stumbles backwards into the kitchen counter, pressing his palms against his eyes to stop the prickling of emotion threatening to betray him. “I hate you,” he says, quietly.

Steve’s face collapses and he sags, miserably, his back to the stove.

“I hate your stupid fluffy duckling hair,” Bucky says, louder. “I hate your tiny waist and your dumb shoulders. I hate that you have only two settings, ‘angry’ and ‘unconscious’. I hate that it’s taken me so much fuckin’ effort to carry on living and you just don’t care if you die.”

Bucky’s almost shouting now, jabbing a finger right between Steve’s corset-plumped tits. “I hate that just when I decide I couldn’t hate you more, you go and blindside me with nuclear levels of sincerity. I hate that people out there think you’re actually a good person and someone to look up to, not the worst, most argumentative, spiteful little shit on earth. I hate everything about you,” he says, his voice shattering to pieces. “But I hate the idea of being without you more,” he gasps.

Steve blinks, his stupid Bambi lashes clumping with unshed tears.

Then he shoves himself into Bucky’s space, his hands running over Bucky’s shoulders — both metal and flesh — and down his chest. His plush lips are inches from Bucky’s.

“I hate your scruffy, non-regulation haircut,” Steve breathes. “I hate your weird eyes that look like they can see through all my defences. I hate your shitty t-shirts full of holes, and the obscene way your skinny jeans hug your thighs. I hate that you only shave about twice a week because then I spend entire briefings thinking about beard burn.” He reaches out and pinches one of Bucky’s nipples, which immediately pebbles up under his touch. “I hate your stupid body. I hated it before, and I hate it even more now. I hate that you lost an arm for me,” he says, louder, “and instead of feeling guilty about it I hate that all I can think about is what metal fingers would feel like up my ass. I hate that you make me lose control,” Steve continues, leaning in closer to Bucky, so his last words are like a whisper, directly into Bucky’s mouth. “In all ways, at all times. And I hate how much I like it.”

They kiss, then, not with the rushed violence of lust or the soft ease of love, but somewhere in between, Bucky still backed against the kitchen counter, his hands around Steve’s corseted waist, and Steve with one hand in Bucky’s hair and the other exploring his new metal arm.

“I’m not cleared for strenuous activities,” Bucky says breathlessly into Steve’s mouth.

“It’s okay, baby, I have a plan. You’re just going to go back to bed and I’m going to ride you while you lie back and think of, uh…”

“…America,” Bucky finishes. “Definitely America. Truth and freedom and… eagles, and shit.”

“Fuck you,” Steve says.

“I mean, you could, but since you went to all the trouble,” Bucky says, his metal hand skirting around to Steve’s lower back, then down to the cleft in his ass, where he pushes gently on the plug embedded there.

Steve hisses, his cheeks flushing with arousal, as he goes up onto his toes.

Bucky pulls the plug out, then, and lays it next to the stove before gently probing the area around Steve’s asshole with his metal fingers. Steve had been thorough. There’s a lot of lube, and so he gently eases two metal fingers into Steve’s ass. Steve collapses against him, making short, abortive thrusts against the crease of Bucky’s hip, and smearing pre-come all over those beautiful sky-blue panties.

“Tell you what, Steve,” Bucky says, adding in a third finger, “I think kitchen sluts need to get fucked over the counter. Come in here dressed like that, flashing your ass at me, I gotta assume you want only one thing.” He crooks his fingers as he thrusts.

Steve throws back his head and moans, and that exposes his absurd chest, so Bucky does what any sane, red-blooded man would do, which is stick his face in it and start kissing and sucking at his nipples.

“You want that?” Bucky asks, his voice still muffled by Steve’s pecs.

Steve shoves Bucky away and for a moment, Bucky thinks he’s judged this all wrong, but then Steve lays his chest across the polished granite of the kitchen island and spreads his legs, fucking presenting to Bucky.

Bucky smacks Steve’s ass hard with his metal hand, then licks and bites at the red mark it leaves behind. And something in the back of his mind goes, _This is where Steve says no. This is where he tells you to stop._ Because Bucky Barnes is a goddamn pervert and there’s no way that Steve really is along for that ride.

But Steve just growls and shoves his ass a little further up, showing off his hole. “Bucky, baby, I need you, come on, now.”

“Baby?” mouths Bucky to himself. That was… _new_. They didn’t really do terms of affection. “Okay, gorgeous,” Bucky tries, because, fuck, Steve is gorgeous like this, all that power and muscle restrained into the strict delicacy of a corset. He ghosts the fingers of his flesh hand down the laces that crossed Steve’s back, before hooking them into the back of the panties. Then Bucky freezes. “Fuck! Lube!” He says. He glances around the kitchen and briefly thinks about despoiling his boy with olive oil, but then a foil packet lands on the counter near him.

Bucky gapes at the packet for a moment. “Please tell me you had that stuck down your cleavage,” he mutters as he reaches for it.

“Just shut up and fuck me,” Steve says, his voice equal parts needy and angry.

“Okay,” Bucky mumbles as he rips the packet open with his teeth, and then lubes himself up. He’s absolutely hard, has been pretty much since he walked in and saw Steve standing there dressed like his wildest sex fantasy, and honestly if he could just mentally take a picture right now, that was his spank bank sorted out for the rest of his life.

He pushes into Steve, slowly. It’s overwhelming: the swell of Steve’s muscular ass, even more pronounced with his waist nipped in so hard by the corset. The garters that run over them, attaching to lace-topped silk stockings stretched over broad, creamy thighs. The feeling of Steve around him, hot and tight. That’s the other thing they don’t talk about: the sex. It is, without question, the best Bucky has ever had. And he hopes he’s doing it for Steve, too, but he’s never sure. It’s part of the underlying terror he has about… all of this, because guys like him, scruffy vets with PTSD, don’t get Steve Rogers. Guys like him are a stage for the Steve Rogerses of this world, a fun bit of rough while they work some shit out. Even with his words on Steve’s hip, he can’t believe Steve is actually his, to keep.

Bucky just pauses then, halfway in, to collect himself. Shuts his eyes and just… exists in that moment, trying to preserve it in his memory forever, in case anything goes wrong.

So of course Steve ruins it.

* * *

Steve had his speech prepared. Natasha helped him with the corset, and he was going to charm Bucky with sincerity and a full English breakfast and then ride him on the sofa until they both screamed.

But then Bucky had walked in naked, his hair wet from the shower, water still dripping down that lithe, muscular body of his, and Steve had been confronted with just exactly what Bucky had sacrificed for him.

The shining silver arm. And the horrible burn scars that radiated out from it.

And instead of being repulsed or feeling bad, Steve’s brain had shorted out as his dick took over because apparently being fucked by a really hot cyborg was way up there on the list of Things That Revved Steve’s Engine. So he’d flubbed the speech and the breakfast, and everything had gone completely wrong but also somehow kind of right and he was bent over the kitchen counter and Bucky had that dick of his, the one that drove Steve completely crazy, halfway into him. It was so close to the feeling of fullness he craved, the roughness of it, but Bucky had stopped.

(Steve was not ever going to tell Bucky how much he’d missed the sex. How much he’d come to _need_ it, as a release. How the idea of getting himself off with anyone else, or even on his own, had come to repulse him.)

(But God, it had been a couple extremely stressful weeks since that fuck in the bathroom of Tony’s gala and Steve needs Bucky to fuck him senseless, he’d been ready to explode for days now and the only thing at this moment keeping him together was the corset.)

“Damn it, coffee boy,” Steve growls. “Before I die of old age.”

There’s a curse behind him and then Bucky rams all the way into him and yes, _yes_ , this is _absolutely_ what he needs, and he pulls up one knee on the countertop, flattening his inside thigh against it so his own dick gets some clearance, and then he just holds on. Because if there’s one thing he can depend on, it’s that if he gets Bucky angry enough, it will be the best sex of his life. _Again_.

And he can hear Bucky’s rumble of fury from behind him, and he feels the moment that metal fingers reach in and wrap themselves around the laces of his corset. Bucky yanks Steve upwards and uses the corset laces like a handle to ram Steve back onto his dick as he thrusts inside him.

It’s heaven. Steve never wants him to stop.

Bucky’s other hand wraps around the crease of his bent thigh, right over his Words, and uses that for leverage too. There’s barely any friction on Steve’s dick, it’s occasionally rubbing against the top of the counter but that’s it, he doesn’t need it, Bucky is hitting his prostate like it’s the last two punches of a prizefight and Steve can barely breathe, much less think, and someone’s babbling the most ridiculous nonsense, _baby I love it when you get like this, yeah, fuck me harder, never had it like this, don’t stop_ , and dimly before his orgasm hits him Steve realises it’s him saying these things. Then just as he comes, Bucky pulls him back against his chest, throwing a strong arm around his waist to hold him up, and then a metal hand reaches forwards to twist his nipples hard in time with Bucky’s last, vicious, ragged thrusts, and he shouts as his orgasm rattles through him like a runaway freight train and Bucky grunts and snarls through his like an animal and then he’s drifting, weak as a kitten, half-collapsed against Bucky in a post orgasmic daze.

They both stand there for a moment, swaying against each other, Bucky with one hand braced against the counter, and then Steve feels more than sees Bucky shake his head to clear it.

Fear twists in Steve’s stomach. Is this where—

But no. Bucky scoops Steve up and carries him through the apartment to what must be the master bedroom, with a huge king-sized bed, its sheets made but mussed as if someone had fallen asleep on top of it. Then Bucky puts Steve down gently and rolls him onto his stomach.

The bed is… very soft, and it smells like Bucky. Steve thinks modern beds in general are way too soft, but it’s nice, right now, to be resting on a marshmallow, while careful hands unlace his corset and soft lips kiss down the marks on his skin left by its seams.

Then Bucky lies down on top of him, and… it’s nice, the pressure, and the warmth, and the feeling of Bucky’s soft dick nestling between his ass cheeks. The kisses move up to his neck, under his ear to the spot that’s both ticklish and incredibly erotic. He giggles and twitches, underneath Bucky, trying to get away from the brush of lips and the scratch of stubble.

Bucky’s hands come up and grab his upper arms, keeping him in place. “Are you ticklish?” Soft lips whisper in his ear.

“No!” Steve squeaks.

He can feel the smile on Bucky’s face.

But instead of submitting to the tickle fight he’d no doubt enjoy, which would definitely end up in more sex, he flips them, so he’s on top of Bucky. “I want this,” he says, because he’s realised they’ve made such a mess of things he needs to keep saying it, if Bucky’s ever going to believe him.

Judging by the look on Bucky’s face, the jury’s still out on that.

“I want what lovers have,” Steve says, running a hand down Bucky’s side, over his hip, down to where the dark hair grows. “I love making you angry, but… I want this too. I want to just hold you, and have you hold me.” He kisses Bucky’s nose. “I want to call you baby. And have lazy mornings of breakfast in bed with you. And steal your shirts, because they smell like you. I know we— I know I started us all wrong, but… is this something you’re interested in? Giving us a shot?”

The stormy glare in Bucky’s eyes has softened, and he blinks away unshed tears. He doesn’t answer Steve with words — which, fair enough, Words have never really worked for them.

Bucky answers with a nod, and a kiss, as lovers do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry this took so long! I had so many deadlines. SO. MANY.
> 
> This is probably not the last in this series*, but I want to finish some of my other WIPs first... 
> 
> *honestly, we need to do a deserumed Steve one, mostly for Tony standing there like “I though he’d be... more chill, now that he’s 5’4” and can get knocked over by a strong breeze” and Bucky’s like “FML, also, how is he even hotter as a twink” and Steve like “haha, nobody recognises me any more, I’m going to museums (and get in fights) and art classes (and get in fights) and bars (and get in fights)”...

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently all I do is write these assholes now? I think this is the last one, though.


End file.
